C.H.U.D.

Cannibalistic Humanoid Underground Dweller. Or, if you prefer, Contamination Hazard Urban Disposal.

Wow, where to even begin with this one.

I caught this one on Netflix a few weeks back. It kept creeping into my Top 10, so I figured what the hell. Going into it, I expected something equivalent to The Toxic Avenger, with Citizen Toxie being shallowly replaced by equally absurd, low-budget, 80s-style monsters. What exactly was the fascination with toxic waste back then? Big globs of oozing, green-glowing barrels with skulls and cross-bones on them? Yikes.

Anyways, this flick turned out to be a complete surprise. And dare I say it, a pretty damn good one. It certainly had the B-movie aspect of, well yea, cannibalistic humanoid monsters living in the sewers. But the build-up to it, the colorful characters, their lives and problems, were definitely more interesting than I was expecting. There's Cooper, a photographer and young husband. He and his wife are dealing with typical young couple stuff, like living in an apartment and starting a family. Meanwhile, his photography subjects -- homeless people from around the city -- ask him for help with weird things going on in the subways, where they live. Then there's 'The Reverend', a one-man soup kitchen, who also gets involved with the strange occurrences. Lastly, we have Bosch, a cop whose wife, like so many others lately, has disappeared and is presumed dead. He is forbidden by his superiors to investigate any of the missing persons, but becomes increasingly desperate and defiant as the mystery unravels.

The monsters themselves are relatively unimaginative and are not particularly scary, out of context (like when one tries to break into Cooper's apartment). It's more of the idea that there's malevolent creatures living under the city, perhaps just a few feet from that subway platform, hiding in the shadows. But overall, I would say the monsters are the least terrifying part of the film. What I found particularly disturbing was the state of New York City in the '80s. Holy shit, what a dump. In many ways, that alone was enough to make this a horror movie; just watching the characters walking around dark, deserted city streets.

In the end, it's the interesting characters that make the movie watchable, and give it an unexpected but appreciable depth.

As for the drink-o-meter: you could definitely watch this bad boy with a drink in hand. It's equal parts dumb and entertaining. So have a drink that's equal parts gin and...I don't know, radon, so that it glows in the dark. During the movie you can decide if that burning sensation in your throat is the alcohol or the ionizing radiation hollowing out your esophagus. On second thought, just use an energy drink. Though I can't promise it'll be any healthier.

World War Z

In Part Two of my two-part Big Budget Movies That Came Out Last Summer But I Had Too Much Dignity To Bother Seeing Them But Last Weekend I Got Bored And Watched Them As A Way Of Putting Off Studying For My Midterms series, I will be discussing World War Z, possibly the most big budgety and putting offety of the bunch.

The film stars Brad Pitt as an action hero who spends the entire movie running away from the action. It is based on the Max Brooks book ("max brooks book" - say that three times fast) of the same title, but the only thing it has in common with the source material is that both stories take place on earth. So if you're thinking about seeing it because you enjoyed the book, you will most certainly be disappointed. It'd be like...seeing Iron Man 3 and expecting it to be anything like anything that's good.

So much burning city, and his badass hair is perfectly still. Good attention to detail.

The great tragedy of this movie is not the misuse of the source material. It could have been a great film, providing you cut out the completely moronic story, the atrocious dialogue, work up better CGI zombies (or, god forbid, hire a few extras), etc. I think the best and worst decision made by the filmmakers was the PG-13 rating. On the one hand, this toned down the shock value which has basically become the cliche of the zombie horror subgenre. If you want excessive gore and not much else, watch The Walking Dead. No seriously, do it; it's pretty entertaining.

On the other hand, the rating forced the filmmakers to come up with more interesting ways to build suspense and scare audiences. Some attempts were pretty lame, like when the greatest scientist in the world trips and blows his own head off five minutes into the movie, leaving the world-saving up to Mr. Pitt. The end result, therefore, falls more in line with a film like 28 Days Later, where the tension and anxiety comes from the non-stop pace.

The movie's weakness is that it may have been written by children. The plot is so contrived and goofy that I was laughing out loud at most of it. We have a zombie apocalypse happening, humanity is doomed, and the world-saving gets put on hold to show us Pitt's wife and children picking bunk beds and looking scared, even though they're in no danger whatsoever. The film is a jumble of exploding set pieces swarming with CGI, like a Roland Emmerich disaster movie. And all of it is based on a very thin plot involving a cure that only Brad Pitt can find. And when he does find it, the sexy badass...well, it's kind of a letdown.

And I have to revisit the shoddy effects work on the monsters. Remember the zombies (or whatever they were) in I am Legend? They just looked so damn fake. Even for the close-up scenes at the end, the filmmakers somehow thought CGI would be more effective than a real woman on the table or a real man staring down Will Smith. When it comes to humans, CGI just does not work for close-ups (hey, this seems like a good place to plug another piece I wrote on post-mortem CGI doppelgängers). Well, WWZ is almost as guilty. Even from the trailers you can get an idea of how phony the monsters look. Of course there's going to be some amount of CGI when you have thousands of zombies swarming over a city at top speed. But with the budget this movie reportedly had to work with, zombies flipping over buses and building a rage-fueled pyramid shouldn't look so awful.

In the end, the movie delivers what it promises: a movie. And if all you want to do is watch a movie for movies' sake, then this movie is for you. Movie, movie, movies. Have I used the word 'movie' enough? Okay, movi-...getting on. If you want to be critical about it, the movie is pretty shitty. But for what it's worth, it's take on zombies is refreshing, albeit a bit shy of original. Here's a drinking game to keep you motivated.

I don't really remember how our drink-rating rules work. So I'm going to give this one an 8. 8 beers. Meaning you should drink 8 beers just before you start, so that, periodically, just as you're beginning to wonder why you're watching this movie, you have to get up and pee and come back thinking it's interesting again.

The Wolverine

As I have been repeating for the past couple of months, the movies this summer were generally underwhelming. But in my boredom lately, I rented and watched two blockbuster summer films that I suspected would be worth my time, but perhaps not my money: The Wolverine and World War Z.

Unfortunately, this blog lacks a section for movies that are no longer in theaters, not underrated, and not necessarily bad. Then again, now that I think about it, I can tag this post with as many labels as I want, so what the hell, I'll just use a combination of categories.

First up: The Wolverine, Hugh Jackman's sixth -- but apparently far from last -- portrayal of the adamantium-clawed mutant.

I was planning on seeing this film in theaters when it came out. And then...I didn't.

Anyway, the convenient thing about watching a high-profile movie months after its release is the opportunity for a clean slate; having put the summer movie season behind me, I literally had no expectations going into this film. I'm learning that the key to enjoying a comic book movie is to not take it too seriously. I'm not sure when I started expecting every superhero to match Nolan's Batman, but I think it was around the same every studio and filmmaker tried to convince me that I should.

The Wolverine is a reminder that these movies are meant to be fun. Hugh Jackman -- who apparently never ages and seems to be in better shape than ever -- loves playing the ferocious but lovable Wolverine. He manages to expertly balance the character's intensity with his aggressive good humor (he's had plenty of practice) to the point where he is always exciting to watch. And in a film willing to hold back on the overly fantastical to focus more on one man's inner struggle, Jackman is really given room to explore the role in ways that somehow seem new, even after half a dozen appearances on the big screen. On top of that, the action is rarely over-the-top or gratuitous (for the genre), which sets this film apart from other 2013 tentpoles.

Overall, this movie is worth a viewing. If you are an avid fan of the X-Men films, I think The Wolverine, along with X-Men: First Class, mark a new era for the franchise(s) and hopefully herald a revival to the genre. As usual, I'm not saying this movie is flawless; but it is an immense improvement upon it's predecessor X-Men Origins: Wolverine and an indication that a full-length film can focus on a single mutant and not get boring.

Oh, and this movie cranks up the level of gore and mature language very effectively. I do not believe either of these things make a good movie, but the fact is you don't realize how silly a ruthless, foul-mouthed killing machine with razor claws is without some spraying blood and a few 'fuck yous' until you get just that. Hopefully future iterations of the character will have a similar level of violence.

The Bay

Hot damn! I am on a roll with these reviews lately. It's too bad I haven't written anything for my other blog in like two months. But hang in there, Serenity Now fans, I'm still alive and will eventually have a thought worth writing about.

In the meantime, with the weather like it is -- I swear to you I saw a bird egg fall out of a nest, crack open on the road, and start to boil -- I find myself seeking out the cool refuge of my air conditioned room, where there is little to do but watch movies and have staring contests with the anonymous stock photo in the portrait picture frame leaning against my wall that I never got around to putting a real picture in.

Last night, between writing about Monsters University and watching the new Matthew Lillard crime saga The Bridge, I decided to peruse the new releases on Netflix. What I came up with was the The Bay, yet another found footage horror movie about...something blurry and shaky.

Netflix: Like a boss
Viewer: Dynamic Duo (except just me)

Where to begin? Well let me first say that I thought Paranormal Activity was a complete and utter waste of time. And now that I'm looking at the cover of this movie and I see that it is somehow associated with that schlock, I am disappointed, but also not entirely surprised.

The concept is this: three years after some sort of mysterious happening in a small Maryland town on the Chesapeake on the fourth of July, we are told that enough footage and data has been collected to show us exactly what happened. So the story is told mainly from the point of view of one reporter there to document the holiday festivities, but we also get a collection of home videos, cell phone footage, somehow recorded skype and facetime conversations, and the dashboard cameras of police vehicles. (Nothing exceptionally new there.)

The timeline is a bit confusing as we jump around from the fourth of July to weeks or months prior, when strange events in the area signaled the coming disaster. The story itself is pretty original. It reminded me of a mix between Contagion and The Crazies, two movies that are, individually, better than this one. But I could almost see this working as a regular (not found footage) movie with a real budget. The scares were, for the most part, genuine. Not so much bogey men jumping out at the camera or the camera moving around way too much, although there was a fair share of that.

The acting was pretty atrocious, for the most part. My favorite -- and least favorite part -- was the bumbling policemen. There is a scene where screams are coming from a house. So one cop gets out of the car, approaches and enters the house, while the other one just sits there, nervously. When several gunshots erupt from inside the house, he shouts out the patrol car window to his partner. After a few moments of no response he figures he ought to get off his ass and, you know, see if the man whose back he's supposed to be watching is alive or not.

That was the most obnoxious bit screenwriting. I enjoy the talks between the head doctor of the local hospital and the CDC as they try to figure out what's killing everyone. And the fact that the entire disaster takes place over the course of a single day really adds to the urgency and desperation of everyone involved. At first the CDC sort of brushes off the first deaths as a contained anomaly, even as the doctor explains that they have dozens of people pouring in needing limbs amputated.

Now, I may be a complete moron, but the explanation for the disaster seemed fairly believable. A small town with a large chicken industry is accidentally pouring steroids into their water supply. This, added with some accidental toxic waste from a power plant upstream accelerates the growth of parasites that do, indeed, exist in real life. So, that whole thing could potentially happen. The leap to them eating people's organs from the inside out is a bit out there, but hey, this is a horror movie, remember? At least it makes a rational attempt at an explanation.

So overall, I thought the movie was pretty effective. I hate the found footage, shaky-cam bullshit, but just as I got past it with V/H/S, I found it mostly tolerable here as well. The scares were genuine. There's one scene where the reporter stands on the docks and just hears agonizing screams coming from all over the quiet town, as people die in their homes and in the streets. That may have been the most disturbing couple of minutes, even with the actress' brutal acting. Some of the twists are predictable, but luckily we don't really get bogged down with annoying characters that we're supposed to care about; instead we just watch this entire town devolve into chaos.

I don't really know what kind of person watches horror movies. I watch them by myself sometimes when I'm bored. But I guess if you watch them with friends or something, that's cool too. I would recommend this one, whether you drink to it or not. It's not really fun or thrilling. It's just eerie and discomforting. Which I think I like better.

Beer rating: 2/10

V/H/S

So far, we haven't really done any horror movies. Yet it seems to me that most horror titles would be found in the section of drunken critic recap. I am not a big fan of horror movies, unless there's something about them that separates them from the rest. For example, Tucker and Dale vs. Evil and Cabin in the Woods -- which, incidentally, have the exact same scenario -- are great stories because they take everything we expect and turn it inside out. Which is hard to do in a usually very predictable genre. What are there like six Paranormal Activity movies now? That's just irresponsible film-making.

Last night I decided to watch something I had heard very little about. A movie called V/H/S, from 2012.

Netflix: Yes
Viewer: D'yltagnan

Not to be confused with Attack of the Killer Video Cassettes from Outer Space

The premise here is that a bunch of douche-bags break into a house to find a particular V/H/S tape. In their search, they come across a collection of tapes, that they of course watch. Each one a different, and completely unrelated, horror vignette. Let me just say off the bat, the entire movie is done with that irritating shaky-cam thing that I guess is really cheap, and won't seem to go away. And that includes the scenes with the douche-bags, since I guess they are also filming themselves robbing a house.

Don't expect too much story here. After each vignette we return to the house to find that another d-bag has disappeared. I guess the videos are killing them off, Ring-style or something. It's never really explained. And each story poses more questions than it bothers to answer. Which in some ways adds to the creepiness of it all.

I will say, though, that I liked the creative ways they had people using cameras in each tale. In one story, a guy had a camera hidden in his glasses to document a wild night. In another, it was all Skype recordings. It shows at least a little bit of effort in the writing. Also, the stories were relatively original. I mean each one kind of started out the same way: a group of young adults (usually horny and/or drunk) encounter some violent and horrible stuff. But I have to say, the 'monsters' and surprises were unusual and fairly entertaining.

The dialogue is somewhat painful to listen to. But only because it's remarkably accurate. Listening to four moronic drunks talk about how wasted they are, and the chicks they want to nail, is pretty hollow, but then again, I can totally hear certain friends of mine having that exact conversation. Unfortunately several of the stories have this and other slow, time-wasting conversations before something interesting happens, which was kind of off-putting, at least in the beginning.

Overall, it wasn't bad. Maybe the key to a good horror story is keeping it short. Each segment required a limited amount of focus, and not much investment in the characters or their lives, which is just the attitude you have going into a movie where you assume everyone is going to die. To drink to this movie may make you nauseous, but then again you may be more able to tolerate the irritating characters and dialogue.

Drunk Meter: 5/10

Also, I guess you want to know if it's actually scary. Well, like I said, there's not much story or character development, so there isn't much in the way of psychological thrill. The suspense only comes from the usual what's-going-to-be-around-that-corner curiosity. What's nice is that the scares do not rely on loud noises or sudden camera moves. Things just steadily get creepier until everyone is dead and the video ends. So is it scary? No, not really.

Sushi Girl

So I came across this movie a long while ago, but before I got a chance to watch it, it vanished.  So from then on, it was always lingering in my thoughts.  It sounded absurd, but just my kinda absurd.  A man, after spending six years in jail for a failed robbery, is released.  He finds himself at a sushi restaurant, with the four other members of the robbery who he had remained silent about.  But they all want to know what happened to the loot he was carrying when it all went to hell.  All the while this is happening, the sushi girl, who has been trained remain like a stone for the customers... need I go on?  So obviously I've been keeping my eye out for this movie to show up again.  Yeah I know I could probably find it online, but that's asking a lot of me and my internet is kinda crap.  But then it happened.  It showed up on Netflix.  So I settled in, cracked open a cold one, and hit play.

Netflix: Oh yeah
Reviewer: Hattori Marko

Seriously?  How could you pass up something with this as a poster?

So I know I cut out of the plot there, but really, if you've seen Reservoir Dogs, it's not too far from that.  But don't take that as an insult to the movie.  There's enough going on in Sushi Girl to give it it's own character and make it unique.  But the one thing is that it does revolve around the aftermath of a robbery gone wrong.  Just several years after the fact instead of right after.  And the other thing is that a majority of the movie surrounds the torture of Fish (Noah Hathaway), the man who just got out of prison.  Since he was the bagman during the robbery, obviously he'd know where the money went.  But this is when the story begins to twist and turn a bit, keeping you engaged and wondering what the fuck is happening.  You will wonder that at time, but like I said, you'll stay engaged.

I said torture above.  I said a lot of things, but the 271st word was torture and that's what I'd like to talk about.  Know how in Reservoir Dogs it was just Mr. Orange torturing the cop?  Well in this turns into a sadistic game of who can get him to talk first between Crow (Mark Hamill) and Max (Andy Mackenzie).  As the anger grows within the group at the table overseeing the torture, so to does the brutality of the torture.  It throws you really; the violence begins rather tame (at least for me) and then moves rather jarringly to bloody violent.  And we see characters crack and we see characters turn into monsters.  And that's what I found most engaging, with the characters reacting and acting with the violence.

And now a little bit on the acting.  Boom, flawless segue right there.  But really, it was a grab bag of acting all throughout the movie.  Not including the side characters, who're all pretty forgettable, the main cast is, for the most part, good.  Tony Todd, as the leader Duke, is always entertaining.  His impossibly deep voice is incredibly chilling, added with the fact his character is one of the more sadistic.  James Duval plays Francis, who they attempt to add a character arc to, what with him having a kid now, but he's just not as engaging as he should be.  Noah Hathaway really just sits there, says the odd line and screams from pain, which he does unnervingly well.  Andy Mackenzie just kinda growls through his lines, since his role is just to be very violent and unhinged.  But I know what you're waiting for.  I said his name up above.  Mark Hamill.

I don't know why I decided to go to another paragraph, but I did.  Delaying for tension I guess.  Mark Hamill is the reason I became so intrigued with this movie, since it seems way out of his wheelhouse.  But he did not disappoint, and even when the movie itself lagged, he was the reason I kept going with it.  He plays way over the top with Crow, being both hilarious and brutal throughout.  Crow is the over-enthusiastic torturer of the group, and Hamill plays it with gleeful abandon.  And while some of the dialogue can be stilted, it comes alive when Hamill goes off or when he's arguing with someone, which happens quite a bit.  It's like he's the live action version of any of the characters he's voiced over the years.  And what's more with the characters is that for the first 20 odd minutes, we just watch as all of the men come to the restaurant.  We watch them interact and reveal certain character traits and where each of their relationships lie with one another.  It does a great job setting them all up and making sure we know who they are before the blood starts spilling and the bullets start flying.  And that does a lot for the engagement of the viewer for the rest of the movie.

So in the end, I'd want you to sit down and give it a go.  The story might not be framed all the originally, since it's just a retreading of Reservoir Dogs, but it makes up for that with unique characters and a, for the most part, twisty and violent story.  Some character may be less enthralling than others, but they keep you going, all the way up to the very interesting ending, one I don't want to give away.  It's on Netflix, it's short and to the bloody point and it's good with a bunch of drinks.  Do it.

4/10

Dredd

Mark and I had a fun, movie-filled weekend. So over the next few days you'll be getting a number of reviews, some good and some...well hey, this is the Drunken Critic Recap section, is it not?

For those of you who don't know, Dredd (technically titled Dredd 3D, though I prefer Mark's idea of calling it Dreddd) came out last summer around the same time as Looper, and has a disturbingly similar setting (dystopian future in which some people have mutant powers). It is a remake/reboot for the Judge Dredd character that was first adapted for the screen by Sylvester Stallone in the 1995. This one stars Karl Urban as Dredd, Olivia Thirlby as his partner Anderson, and Lena Headey (Cersei from Game of Thrones) as the villain Ma-Ma.

Netflix: 'fraid not
Viewer: Down the Hatch

For your basic shoot-em-up sci-fi movie, I found Dredd to be quite enjoyable. First of all, the movie has the exact same plot as The Raid. And if you haven't heard of The Raid, fear not, that is one of the other movies Mark and I watched this weekend and will be discussing later this week. The idea is: there is this skyscraper with like 200 stories, filled with poor, degenerate drug dealers, drug users, and just lousy people that we don't mind seeing vaporized by big guns. On the top floor is the drug kingpin, Ma-Ma. On the bottom floor is the badass one-of-a-kind future cop, Judge Dredd (and his partner). When Dredd decides to take on Ma-Ma all on his own (with his partner), she goes over the loudspeaker and tells the residents that there is a reward for whoever eliminates the judges. And...let the games begin.

There are a lot of these movies that just turn out being awful. If you want an example, go read my review on Equilibrium. And the original Judge Dredd was just idiotic. But this one, while not offering anything in the way of interesting character development or edge-of-your-seat plot twists, certainly delivers what it promises: action and violence. It even added some neat FX we haven't seen before, in the form of the side effects of the new drug Ma-Ma hs been pushing, called Slo-Mo, which makes the user see the world at 1/100 its normal speed. This makes for a few interesting scenes where Dredd bursts in on a bunch of users and takes them apart in severe slow-motion gory detail.

Of course, with this genre of film, there are a few plot holes. For example, his partner is a mutant with telepathic abilities. At one point she uses her powers to mentally torture a criminal into giving up information. So clearly she is quite powerful. However, later on, when she is captured and comes face to face with Ma-Ma, she never uses her ability to escape or kill the villain. Also, the Judges are terrible at their jobs. In the opening scene, Dredd is chasing down a van full of drug addicts armed with automatic weapons. During the chase they run over a few pedestrians, and then flee the vehicle, killing innocent bystanders left and right. All because Dredd decided to open fire on their van on the middle of the highway instead of following them or calling for backup or something.

All in all, Dredd does not require a lot of thought. But it still manages to be a fun movie. The title character is the stone-cold invincible cop, somewhere between Batman and Robocop, and his partner is a gorgeous blonde trainee. This, combined with the senseless violence and lack of a story make it a must-see guy movie. I definitely recommend it.

Beer scale: 2/10 Really no beer is necessary, but it is a great movie to drink to.

Lockout

So I was trapped on a train for a while with nothing but an iPad and a flask full of Jameson. So I decided to find something that I wanted to watch for a while but would go well with a strong drink.  So half-assedly flipping through Netflix, I came across this 2012 -- apparently foreign -- action movie.  So I took a sip and hit play.

Netflix:  Well obviously, I just said that

Reviewer: Mad Stacks Mark

So when I picked this on Netflix, I was geared up for stupid fun.  Now I love Escape from New York; one of my favorite movies, and I know it’s kinda campy, but it’s just balls to the wall entertainment.  So when I heard that this was basically Escape from New York in space with Guy Pearce, I was curious but ready for a good time.  It’s essentially the same premise, just switch out some things, just a couple small things.  Instead of the President getting himself caught in a sticky situation, we find the President’s daughter, played by Maggie Grace, going up to a Super-Max prison, in space, on a humanitarian mission.  You know, cause we should care if the crazy killers are at least being treated well up there.  Needless to say she gets herself caught up in a bit of a mess, that mess being a riot and prisoner takeover, and it all needs to be sorted out by Guy Pearce’s Snow.  Yes , his name is Snow, but then again the lead in Escape from New York was Snake, so I wasn’t expecting Shakespeare here.  Actually, his name get explained (cause it needed to be explained for some reason) later on in a way that made me want to put my fist through my face.  But enough about my life.  Now Snow’s whole deal is he was trying to get a package of apparently immense importance from someone when that shit went wrong and he’s now been convicted of terrorism and murder and such.  Well that escalated quickly.  So in order to free himself, Snow is offered a deal: get the President’s daughter before the prisoners realize who she is and he walks free.  Yep, when it comes down to it, it is basically Escape from New York... in space.

And yet, I think back on this movie and can’t remember a fucking thing.  It’s the worst kind of action adventure movie; one that just seems to blur in my head and nothing stands out.  There are explosions, some fights, no blood (cause we don’t want to scare the average moviegoer, now do we?) shoe-horned in romantic feelings, and some witty one-liners.  And what gets me, is that this was brought to us in part by Luc Besson, the guy behind Taken, The Professional (Leon for some people), and District B13.  So I was expecting some good fight sequences that would at least keep me engaged.  As far as I can recall, there was one.  At the beginning.  The rest of the film is taken up by cluttered CGI, pretty terrible acting, and too much seriousness.  I’ll give it this, Snow had quite a few good one-liners.  If anything, Guy Pearce knew what he was in for.  He hams it up and makes Snow fun and entertaining when the rest of the movie is trying to be a serious action movie.  Which seems ridiculous when the bad guys, the top prisoners running the riot, are two thick-accented Scottish guys, one straight-laced, the other unbridled psychotic violence.  If this just ratcheted up the camp and disposed of any pretense of seriousness, this would have been great.  But the biggest problem is that the serious tone at points undermines the frenetic action joy that follows Snow throughout the movie.

This is a movie best served with plenty of drinks.  Drink every time Snow has a one-liner.  Drink every time you can’t understand the villains (this will get progressively more difficult as time and drinks go on). Drink every time you forget that there was some plot point about the package at the beginning.  Drink just cause.  This could have been much better if it just reveled in it’s apparent silliness, but instead we’re left with a competent movie with entertaining if forgettable action and bland characters aside from Snow.  I mean, I wasn’t expecting this to be amazing, but I was at least expecting to remember the fun of it.  But then again, that might have been the alcohol’s fault.

7/10

The Faculty

The only reason this movie is on the drunken recap page is because it is more entertaining with a drink in hand. Mind you, I also watched it by myself, when one could definitely enjoy it with some friends, with or without any booze.

In actuality, The Faculty is a classic and quintessential 90's movie (1998, to be exact). Remember when the first Scream was unique because it sort of parodied itself by toying with the rules of the slasher movie, while at the same time rebooting the genre for a new generation? The Faculty has similar goals, as it combines heavy high school angst with the paranoia of an Invasion of the Body Snatchers-style alien takeover. I would describe it as The Thing meets The Breakfast Club. A group of high school stereotypes -- the jock, the geek, the outcast, the cheerleader, the new girl, and the junkie  -- discover that the high school faculty, and the community, is steadily being controlled by aliens, and they have to band together to save the town.

Netflix: Does the pope shit in his hat?
Viewer: Dish Soap

First off, let me just say that The Faculty is a great combination of familiar faces that you'd never expect on the same screen. The cast includes Elijah Wood, Josh Hartnett, Jordana Brewster, Usher, Salma Hayek, Jon Stewart, and several others. In fact, fifteen years later, the high school setting resonates even more when you see this group of youngsters that is now all grown up. Like looking in a yearbook, you say "well, he went on to Lord of the Rings, she does Fast and Furious, that guy is a famous singer, whatever happened to her".

Which brings me to my main point: what I love about the story is how relatable it ends up being. First off, you have characters that, even though they are all high school archetypes, are multi-dimensional personalities. Each one is hiding a part of his or her self. The junkie is actually a brilliant chemist, the jock wants to quit sports and focus on his studies, etc. And in high school, who hasn't hid their true identity from everyone else, for fear of what others might think of them? It is an unwritten high school rule that you either conform to a cliche, or be cast out. It's interesting, in the open scenes, how we get a view of the high school setting that seems a bit extreme, but when you think about it, is pretty accurate. Characters calling each other names for bumping into each other in the hallway. A couple that is violently arguing every time we see them, but remain together for no reason. As the junkie, played by Josh Hartnett, is selling his new drug to some goons in a bathroom stall, the geek (Elijah Wood) is crying in the stall next to them after being bullied.

And as for the faculty being aliens. What high school student (although I probably felt this way more in middle school) hasn't wondered if his teachers, or even the other students, are all a bunch of aliens plotting against him. That is the period in your life when no amount of friends can make you feel less alone and awkward, trying to understand the thoughts and motivations of the people around you. This movie perfectly exemplifies that fear and paranoia, only instead of being a teenager's nightmare, it's real.

That's the beauty of The Faculty. The premise is of course one of science fiction, but you can't help but throw yourself into their shoes, because in your mind it's pretty much what high school was like. The director is Robert Rodriguez, which I did not know until looking it up just now. He is known for Sin City and the Desperado series (oh, and Spy Kids. What?). So it may come without saying that the movie occasionally gets rather bloody and violent (I did say it was like The Thing), but it isn't very excessive, and it adds plenty of scares.

All in all, I definitely recommend this one. Chances are, you already caught bits of it a decade ago when it was frequently on TV. But it's worth a revisit, if not to conjure up all those uncomfortable high school memories, then at least to get a good scare. You don't really need to drink to enjoy it, but hell, it couldn't hurt.

Beer rating: 1.5/10

Goon

Reviewer: Marco Polo
Netflix: Yes, yes, and a whole lot of yes

So I finally got around to seeing this movie, and I geared up with a good load of liquor for it.  I mean, everything about the setup of this movie tells me that it’s gonna be a good one to get drunk to.  First off, it’s written by Jay Baruchel (the scrawny guy from Tropic Thunder) and Evan Goldberg (the co-writer of Superbad and Pineapple Express).  That right there got me ready for what would have to be a whole lot of vulgarity, fat jokes, and the frequent odd penis reference.  Then the fact it’s headed by Seann William Scott, who I have never really seen outside the American Pie series.  So I just set myself for seeing Stifler on ice.  And then the synopsis on the back of the case (yes I own it, I got it as a gift) ended the whole thing with the mother of all cliffhangers: “all he needs to do is learn how to skate.”  I didn’t even care about the rest of the plot; that Doug Glatt, Scott’s character, is in a dead end job as a bouncer, gets the chance to do something with his life when he gets asked to be an enforcer for a minor league hockey team.  That line prepared me for just terrible jokes about not being able to skate and then in the end he’d prove himself and save the day.  I sat back, took a shot, and prepared myself for the worst.

Damn, I couldn’t have been more fucking wrong.

Goon is a great little film.  And right off the bat, that whole business with the “not being able to skate” stuff, gets dealt with in minutes.  And that bit was preceded by Glatt getting into a punch up with half his new team.  This movie is so much more than what the synopsis set it up to be.  Yes, Glatt gets the shot to be something as an enforcer on a minor league team, but they leave out what makes Glatt so compelling.  He’s impossibly kind-hearted; apologizing after he hits someone and, for the most part, being a bit of a pacifist.  But he knows that his greatest strength is his, well, strength.  Seann William Scott blew it away by really showing how awkwardly sweet Glatt can be, while also showing how absolutely determined he is to be somebody as an enforcer.  Also, when he begins his time in Halifax on the team, he meets Eva, played by Alison Pill, who he becomes infatuated with.  And what makes this little romance really interesting instead of feeling tacked on or unnecessary, is the combination of the romantically awkward nature of Glatt and Eva being very blunt about how she’s a terrible person, since at that time, she’s cheating on her boyfriend with him.  It makes watching this interaction engaging. (And that bit with the boyfriend is played out really well later on.)  And the raunchy humor?  Well that comes from his teammates, but primarily from Jay Baruchel's character of Pat, the foul-mouthed, hockey-loving best friend of Doug.  And he’s the one who pushes him to take the opportunity, showing very well how their friendship works.  From there, the story goes nowhere but up.

The whole thing moves quickly from a really useless hockey team to a real minor league team of the Halifax Highlanders.  It’s there we get to see some of the most interesting characters in Doug’s teammates, including Xavier Laflamme, the hotshot Doug was brought on to protect.  And through Laflamme, we get to see two conflicting personalities collide, creating more character development all around.  But the best of the members of the Halifax Highlanders is without question their coach Ronnie Hortense (played hilariously by Kim Coates, well-known as Tig from Sons of Anarchy).  But what about tension or an antagonist, you ask?  What’s the point of the story of an underdog if there’s no real threat to him?  Well shut up, I’m getting to that.  Cause that’s where Liev Schreiber’s character of Rhea “The Boss” Ross comes into play.  Ross is the preeminent enforcer in the NHL, and Glatt’s idol.  But a truly nasty hit lands him in the minors, putting him in the same league as Glatt.  Thus creating a sense of tension; as Doug “The Thug” Glatt rises in popularity, more and more people talk about the epicness of the fight between Glatt and Ross.  But that’s not all; the reason Laflamme is in the minors is because he was knocked out in a game by Ross three years earlier, which in turn destroyed his self-confidence and makes his shy away from oncoming players. All of this creates a very tight knit story of characters that is a joy to watch unfold.

And the last thing I will speak about is that this is a bloody film.  The fights are made to be as graphic as possible, but not by going into the absurd.  They do a good job showing you how violent this line of work really is.  But they never glorify the violence, rather just play it straight; that this is a very real part of hockey.  And the eventual confrontation between Doug “The Thug” Glatt and Ross “The Boss” Rhea is wicked bloody, but it’s the culmination of the whole movie building up to it, and it fucking delivers.

So, in the end, I wish I wasn’t nearly as drunk as I was for this.  This movie is good with a drink or two, but it deserves your full attention.  Seann William Scott’s heartfelt performance, the strength of the supporting cast, the well-executed humor, both raunchy and not, and the overall story of a dead-end Boston bouncer getting the chance to be someone and excel at his strength as an enforcer in minor league hockey makes this movie worth every second of your time.

1/10 (Which in case the explanation wasn't good about this, means it was very good)

Equilibrium

Okay, the boss has been getting on my ass about pumping out some of these drunk reviews. For my first, I chose the Christian Bale masterpiece Equilibrium. It came out in 2002, directed by Kurt Wimmer, whose other credits include...well, who cares?

Netflix: Yup
Viewer: Dipstick

Let's see...the premise is not very original. In a dystopian future, after WWIII, emotions are outlawed and punishable by death. Culture and innovation and life are all a hindrance to productivity and efficiency. It is pretty much the setting of Brave New World or 1984 (that's right, I read, too). Christian Bale is a samurai cop of sorts -- called a Cleric -- and he is in charge of finding members of the 'resistance', people who live outside the main city and fight to overthrow the Fascist regime. He is an expert in the martial art Gun Kata, which involves clearing entire rooms of bad guys with absurd gun swinging, ala Wanted. After he finds out that his partner, played by Sean Bean, has become one of the resistance, Bale, too, stops taking his emotion-suppressant medication and begins to feel. Yada yada yada, he becomes a member of the resistance and kills all the bad guys.

This is a mindless action movie with a tiny bit of imagination. It tries to be smart and poignant, but doesn't seem to realize how unoriginal it is.

The main thing I didn't like about it, is that despite being a mindless action movie, it doesn't have a whole lot of mindless action. So much of the movie is devoted to Bale's nonsensically profound awakening as he discovers emotions for the first time. Rather than see him laugh or smile -- which I perceive would be the most fascinating and awkward instinctive gesture to have for the first time in your entire life -- we interpret Bale's new sensations by watching him listen to Beethoven, look at a snow globe, rearrange stuff on his desk, and hold a puppy, all with an emotionless face. I guess we're supposed to be shocked at how inhuman the world has become, while relating to the protagonist's revelation. But the movie is too black and white (literally, Bale wears all black and when he becomes the hero, he wears all white) to really care. On that same token, his adversaries/former colleagues are cartoonishly villainous; they find the Mona Lisa and set it on fire, they kill all of the aforementioned puppy's friends, and they incinerate Bale's wife for 'sense offense'. They're basically mindless drones, so we really don't care when they all die.

My only other complaint is how wasted the made-up Gun Kata is. If you want a better explanation of it, Cracked.com does a pretty good job. The idea is, a single guy in the center of a room is a more effective assassin, taking a power stance and whipping pistols over his shoulders and around his back, then, say, the twenty guys aiming at him with assault rifles. It's pretty nonsensical, and gets even more ridiculous when they try to explain it. Every time we see Bale use this technique, he gratuitously shoots or pistol whips a handful of bad guys way more times than necessary and with way too much spinning. The final shootout is relatively brief and boring, and is not as dramatic as the filmmakers want it to be. Bale is captured, his weapons taken away, and he is seated in a room, surrounded by bad guys. Yet, despite knowing he is a Cleric, and a master Gun Kata, no one realizes that he has two more guns, literally up his sleeves, with which he executes every single bad guy without breaking a sweat. And when he fights the main villain, we are treated to three full minutes of them swatting each other's arms out of their faces until one of them gets shot.

In the end, Bale is a pretty shitty hero. He let's his wife be executed. He tries to same a few members of the resistance, but then turns his back on them. He watches all the dogs get slaughtered, saves one, and then we don't see the dog again for the rest of the movie, so I can only assume it's dead. He falls for Sean Bean's girlfriend, goes to save her, and then let's her die too. He doesn't really save anyone, actually.

All that being said, there are much worse movies out there than this one. I guess if you and your friends want a movie that's easy to follow to drink to, this is a good choice. Just don't get your hopes too high.

Beer Scale: 2/10

(Now if I'm understanding the rules correctly, the lower a movie is on the Beer Scale, the better it is. It means I only required a couple of beers in order to get through this movie. So all in all, I'm saying it wasn't that bad.)

Sukiyaki Western Django

Well hey all.  I’ve realized that while my colleague and I have been trying to get this old site up and going with some legitimate reviews, we’ve neglected the drunk section of it.  And that just can’t do, I mean there are plenty of films I’ve seen lately while imbibing one thing or another.  And I know Dylan has seen a bunch of films and knowing how much of a lush he is, he’s got to have a couple to write about.  So the idea for this is to do recaps of films we’ve seen.  Still reviews, just shorter and more concise than the other ones we do as a duo.  So without further ado, may I present, our obituary.  Or rather the Drunken Critic Recaps.

Netflix: Not anymore
Viewer: Mark the Martian

Sukiyaki Western Django

Jesus, the things you find late at night; which is surprising since most of it just becomes porn.  But no, I found Takeshi Miike’s (Audition, Ichi the Killer) Japanese western set in the fictional town of Yuta, Nevata.  No I’m not kidding.  It is essentially a Japanese reimagining of Sergio Leone’s A Fistful of Dollars: a lone gunman with no name comes upon the town of Yuta, which is under contention by rival gangs Genji and Heike, color coded white and red respectfully, if you happen to forget what the fuck is going on.  That’s not to say the story is confusing, it’s rather simple: Genji want to kill the Heike, Heike want to kill the Genji, the gunman is asked by a prostitute to kill them all cause the Heike leader killed her husband and now she’s a prostitute for the Genji, but there is also some indication of another gunman named Boody Benten involved somehow, and... ok no, it does get convoluted. And it didn’t help that for some unknown reason Miike decided to direct this whole movie in english even though only a few of them can speak it fluently and that I was getting progressively drunker. So subtitles wouldn't hurt in the least with this one.


That’s not saying this is all bad, not at all.  The action sequences are great, with brilliant shootouts and plenty of impossible kills.  While the movie isn't nothing but action, the times when the guns come out, are always exciting, if a bit eyebrow raising. How is it while when some guys in a scene get shot in the head, it's just blood, but one guy gets feathers blown out the back of him? These are not the questions we mere mortals are meant to have answered. Best just roll with it and enjoy it. The set design as well are gorgeous; Miike creates a very real and vibrant town but plays with the colors so much that everything gets a more surreal feeling.  The final fight, for me at least, was pretty awesome, albeit short.  The snow, which actually comes out of nowhere without reason, creates this stark background for the fight between... well you’ll see, but like I said, it’s pretty intense.  And there is the ever hilarious aspect of Quentin Tarantino’s role as an aged gunman.  The two scenes are relatively brief, but just absurd when they happen.


And yeah it is kinda entertaining knowing now how he made Django Unchained and he was once in a movie involving Django.  But unfortunately, that’s about where I stop with all the praise.


Aside from the story being rather difficult to follow with the aforementioned ridiculous english, none of the characters are all that engaging.  They just exist, do things, and for the most part, die.  There is no sense of character growth and no one I really cared about.  Now, while I was rocking down my whatever number beer, I will say that the Genji leader is a badass.  He’s a terrible person, but he’s a katana wielding sharpshooter who kicks ass like, well, like someone who kicks a lot of ass.  The action from the characters is really all that makes them entertaining, as what they have to say didn’t do a lot for me.  A few have some unique quirks, but on the hole, none of them stand out.  Also there is the juxtaposition of the light and dark tones in the film.  Now that might be a big word to think of while drunk, but you can understand it when it shifts from two wounded characters reaching for each other in the midst of the war torn town, to the schizo sheriff trying to figure out how and why he's got a big fuck off cross impaled in his back.  It's kinda hilarious, but it takes away from the tone of the moment, and that's just naming one scene. The movie can be funny, touching, violent, insane, and confusing, and unfortunately sometimes all at the same time.  But I’ll stop now, this is but a quick recap for all ya’ll. 

So at the end of the night, I rather enjoyed myself.  This was because I got sufficiently drunk, but still.  While the story can become convoluted and drag at points, and the tone shifts unexpectedly now and again, the gorgeous setting and kick ass action can help push you through it.  That and a few brews.  So relax, crack open a cold one, and enjoy a movie that you won’t know what’s going on, but you’ll enjoy watching it.

5 beers outta 10

Drunken Critic Recap

And this is where things get interesting.  So we're not so snobby that we wouldn't watch a bad movie or two.  In fact that's something we love to do.  Just sit down, grab a bunch of that old alcohol, and try to make it through a bad movie, or maybe a movie that's pretty good, but needs a little liquid courage to get to the end.  So our idea is, while reviewing the movies, you know talking about things that might be redeeming about them or why they're absolutely terrible or even why they might actually be hidden gems, we'll have what we call the Beer Scale.  Rated 1 outta 10, it's not to tell you it took us 6 beers to make it through, but rather a 6/10 means I started hitting the strong stuff but I wasn't completely gone yet.  So hopefully this livens up these reviews and gives you a real good look at what's needed to get through some of these flicks.